MELBOURNE, Fla. — One of the top funders of the #NeverTrump movement is now using his name and connections to raise big money to help elect Donald Trump, but he’s telling fellow mega-donors that they can write huge checks without having their names disclosed.

Todd Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, has raised $30 million for a pair of pro-Trump groups and has discussed a $70 million goal before Election Day, according to three Republican fundraisers familiar with the effort.

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They and others in GOP finance circles say Ricketts is making a particular effort to win over donors who want to help Trump but are leery of having their names publicly associated with the polarizing Republican nominee. Ricketts’ pitch to these donors focuses on the fact that one of the pro-Trump groups he’s fronting can accept unlimited checks while keeping its donors' names secret.

The group, which is called 45Committee, is registered under a section of the tax code — 501(c)(4) — that allows tax-exempt groups to accept contributions of unlimited sizes that can be used to air political and issue-based ads without disclosing their donors’ names.

Ricketts also has assumed control of a linked super PAC called Future45 that is required to disclose its donors. But Future45 is one of several pro-Trump super PACs jockeying for donors’ attention, whereas 45Committee is the only secret-money nonprofit with access to elite GOP donors. And sources in conservative finance circles say that the pitch is resonating.

“There is a substantial appetite for a nondisclosing vehicle, because it’s embarrassing to support Trump,” said a fundraiser who is familiar with — but not connected to — Ricketts’ fundraising effort. “There are more donors who are willing to support Donald anonymously than with their names on it.”

Trump’s shaky performance at Monday night’s first debate against Democrat Hillary Clinton could make big-money fundraising even harder for disclosing committees, though Trump attended two closed-press high-dollar fundraisers in Florida before a rally in an airport hangar in this city on Florida's Space Coast.

The Ricketts family has donated only a fraction of the $30 million raised so far by the two 45-branded groups, a $1 million check from Todd Ricketts’ parents — Joe Ricketts and his wife, Marlene Ricketts — that went to the super PAC, not the nondisclosing nonprofit group.

But GOP finance insiders expect the Ricketts family to donate more as the election approaches.

It’s no small surprise that the Rickettses family is willing to support Trump at all — let alone stake their credibility to a big-money effort to elect him — given the bad blood between their family and Trump.

When news broke of the first of the Rickettses’ $5.5 million in donations to Our Principles PAC, Trump lashed out at them, tweeting that the family “better be careful, they have a lot to hide!” Later, he threatened to fund ads attacking the family, “telling them all what a rotten job they're doing with the Chicago Cubs. I mean, they are spending on me. I mean, so am I allowed to say that?”

Yet Trump reached out to the family after it was reported this month that they were taking over Future45 and converting it into a pro-Trump vehicle. The group, along with 45Committee, had been created in October to attack Clinton, but both had gone largely dormant during the heated Republican primary. So Todd Ricketts essentially took them over this month with the intention of running pro-Trump ads, and began making calls seeking support from fellow mega-donors, many of whom had also vehemently opposed Trump.

When Trump called Todd Ricketts to thank him for his support, Ricketts responded that Trump could thank him by winning, according to someone briefed on the call.

Todd Ricketts’ brother, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, endorsed Trump in May, after Trump essentially clinched the GOP nomination but before the rest of the family came around. And Pete Ricketts has been in touch with Trump since then, according to a source close to Trump, who said “Pete and Trump are pretty close.”

Brian Baker, the Ricketts family’s political adviser, who is helping run the 45 groups, declined to comment on the call or the current nature of the relationship between the family and Trump. But Baker said the family always intended to support the GOP nominee — regardless of who it was.

And Baker suggested that they decided to go all in for Trump out of concern about the prospect of a Clinton presidency.

“Even though they supported other candidates during the Republican primary, the Rickettses decided they could not sit back and watch Hillary Clinton become the next president of the United States,” Baker said, “because she represents four more years of the Obama-Clinton economic policies that continue to cripple the middle class.”

Todd Ricketts’ goal is to offset the overwhelming advertising spending advantage enjoyed by Clinton and her allies, Baker said. He added: “Future45 will raise and spend as much money as necessary to try to even the playing field.”

But a GOP operative who is familiar with the Rickettses’ efforts characterized their new effort as “all about power.”

The family — and Baker — “want to be the main players in Republican big money, and they see that Trump has a chance to win, so they want to be able to take credit if he does,” said the operative.

The Ricketts family also helms another super PAC and nonprofit group operation, called Ending Spending, that spent $24 million on ads boosting Republicans or attacking Democrats in congressional races in 2014 and has spent $3 million so far this cycle.

But the Rickettses’ heightened profile in the presidential race in some ways pits them against other big-money operations jockeying for supremacy on the right, including Bob and Rebekah Mercer, the father-daughter mega-donor duo who have created their own pro-Trump super PAC, and who fund a handful of other influential entities.

While the Rickettses' effort is the newest of the bunch, it appears to have gotten a leg up on its competitors by offering a nondisclosing option for donors and also by getting buy-in from Adelson. The casino mogul had signaled months ago that he intended to donate as much as $100 million to help Trump.

But he frustrated all manner of super PAC operatives who courted him by declining to write a check until Todd Ricketts pitched him on his new groups.

Adelson “thought very highly of Todd, and Todd is very involved here,” said an operative familiar with the fundraising effort. “These are hands-on people, and they’re telling donors that there’s not going to be a lot of overhead and that they’re putting a lot of personal time and money and their family’s name behind it. And when they put in their money, donors see that as an important sign.”